The Roadshow More Traveled, Pt. III: Stamped Out In Its Prime

The other reason for bringing The King In Yellow to the event was not as direct as simply gaining information on the book's value. You see, I really had no choice.


I had initially wished to bring a far different item to the Antiques Roadshow, an item which I had also obtained in the exact same manner as the Chambers' book: through my granny and my various trips to Wisconsin as a youth. It was my late, great uncle Sam’s postage stamp collection. It doesn't sound all that exciting, does it? But wait...

I received this book as a child when I was flush with my own burgeoning interest in stamp collecting. I had received a starter set as a present at some juncture, and for a short while, truly became vested in the hobby. I somehow obtained a then recent set of Scott's Catalogues at some point, got a few first issue envelopes, and collected what my youthful mindset believed were stamps of truly ancient vintage: stamps from 10, 20, 30 years ago. Friends gave stamps to me by the dozens, neighbors were happy to give me their opened envelopes, and I had endless stacks of what were actually completely worthless stamps of the current times. But I didn't care. And I didn't know it...

Then I went to Wisconsin. My granny was so taken with my usual overabundance of joy in the subject that she eventually bestowed upon me, on a subsequent trip, Uncle Sam's amazing stamp book. Here's the kicker: the stamp book was published in 1945, stands about four inches thick, and any stamps in it after 1945 are purely a coincidence. They are scattered about on open sections of pages where there is room, but the chief concentration of the book is the fact it is an international postage stamp book. It's not just for American stamps, but for the whole world. And a quick peek through its pages reveals stamps for dozens of countries, and the vast majority of them before 1945.

While the percentage of American stamps is high (mind you, this is only from a spot check, and I have no actual statistics), the bulk of stamps in the volume appear to be of foreign extract. Given that my family stems from Wisconsin, it should come of no surprise that a great many of the stamps are of Scandinavian origin. There are any number of stamps from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. But Britain also gets a good turn, as does Germany (there are a handful of stamps emblazoned with Hitler's sourpuss visage) and France. Most surprisingly, there is a vast reservoir of Russian stamps contained in its pages. Not Soviet stamps, though: these are all from the 19th century, and some of them date as far back as the 1850s. It became apparent to me even as a child that perhaps my great uncle Sam had been brought into the hobby in the same way as I: a spurt of interest, and then emboldened by the passing down of stamps from older relatives and friends.

I don't know this for a fact -- I don't know much about Sam at all, really -- just that I have a postage stamp book and several boxes of books that sat in his tiny home for a multitude of years, including The King in Yellow. Myself, I never truly got into the stamp world. Despite the boost from Granny, my attention was soon divided (and very swiftly) by baseball cards. Once I hit twelve, I was lost to the National Pastime, at least in the collecting sense. Sam's stamp sat undisturbed for numerous years, except for occasions where I would take it out of the box in which I stored it, and fleetingly glanced through its pages. Each time, I would tell myself that I really should get back into the hobby, and make a survey of Sam's collection. And I would even -- every couple of years or so, even recently -- take some time and work on my own collection, in the assumption that this time I was actually going to make some headway. Another secret is that I have always collected every stray stamp that has come my way, for over thirty years now, and I have squirreled them away for a future where I would actually have some time to relax and enjoy the hobby. But it has never been so.

And so, when I first heard we had tickets to the Antiques Roadshow, my first thought was "Why not bring Sam's stamp collection?" Instead of hiring an appraiser, I figured an expert's cursory glance at such a show (in a safe environment) would be enough to ascertain whether or not I had something of a certain worth that required a little bit more care than I was currently (and for three decades) giving the collection.

But it was not to be. Because, on a list of a scant few items that cannot be brought to the Antiques Roadshow, "stamps" is the very first thing on the list...

[To be concluded next Saturday...]

The Roadshow More Traveled, Pt. I

Jesus, I’m glad we didn’t bring a painting to the Antiques Roadshow this weekend.

OK, we did have a print of Jesus in hand – not Jen and myself, mind you, but Jen’s aunt – so we ended up waiting in the Prints and Posters line for a rather long while to have it appraised fleetingly by one of the Roadshow’s experts. But that line was nothing compared to the Hands Across America state of the queue of show-goers who spread themselves across the inside the Palm Springs Convention Center yesterday, their greedy hands mostly festooned with Red Skelton clown paintings. While some lines weren’t even really lines at all – one could just slide immediately up to certain areas without waiting behind a single soul – if you brought a painting to the event, you were going to be standing for a couple of hours at least, even with most appraisals taking a mere two or three minutes apiece.

Fortunately for us – Jen, her mom Sande, Jen's aunt Sue, and myself – we only had that devotional print of Sue’s, Jen’s pair of jewelry items, Sande’s awesome collection of Beatles albums (including UK editions and that famous “baby butcher” cover) and my pair of antique books and an old 8mm movie camera. Our lines, comparatively, were reasonably brief (outside of the prints queue), and in the case of my items, no wait at all. We also were able to skip another potential major time-killer through the use of an insider: Sandy’s old pal Rod, who now occasionally works for Antiques Roadshow and was able to score us a quartet of tickets that enabled us to skip the usual process of timed entrances. Most patrons of the event (which is free, by the way) have specific times printed on their tickets at which they have to arrive well before that time, line up, and then they will gain mass entrance with that particular group sometime around the appointed time. That “time” group then moves forward to join the main entrance line already in wait, which is already rather lengthy itself, but moves along at a fairly rapid clip. Our special tickets allowed us merely to be considered “generic” – their term – and we went immediately into the main entrance line.

Inside in less than an hour, when we went into the main hall, our items were inspected briefly for type. We were then each given tickets for whatever category into which our items fell. Sande’s albums fell into the Collectables group; my camera was considered Science and Technology, etc. We initially sought to all stick together as a group, going to each line in succession. We first hit the Jewelry line, also seemingly long but nothing compared to those around us, and once we arrived at the front, we discovered the snag in the plan.

Due to the mass of people swirling around us, and the noise level such a gathering engenders, it was hard for all of us to hear what the appraiser was telling Jen about the pearls and ring she had brought. We were so used to watching the show and seeing the detailed appraisals – miked, clear, and unfettered by the clutter of humanity – which I guess we just assumed that standing at one of the tables, we would have a similar experience. But the truth is that often you are at the mercy of the personality of whichever appraiser you happen to meet when you get to the table. Some of them are extraordinarily quiet and reserved, while others jump about and are clearly more used to entertaining with their opinions. (The ponytailed burst of energy at the Collectables table was a particular joy to behold, and very sincere in his appreciation of his genre.) The appraiser that we happened upon of the three seated at the Jewelry table was very helpful and knowledgeable, but due to the noise of the place, only Jen and I were really able to hear her comments. We decided that splitting up to various areas might be a good way to go, since the Collectables line was somewhat lengthy, and my two weren’t at all.

Sande’s albums were pretty damn cool, it was agreed by all (especially by women of a like age in the Jewelry line), but as we expected, the main one of note was the justly infamous “baby butcher” cover of Yesterday and Today, the one featuring the Fab Four covered in doll parts and chunks of raw meat. Controversial for the time – in fact, probably even now in some areas – the supposedly gory cover was replaced with another less interesting one, only on the early pressings, Capitol merely slapped the new picture over the original. Enterprising teens like Sande and Sue during those days of the British Invasion knew full well what to do: steam the boring new cover off to reveal the disgusting old one. Which they did indeed do, and it was an act that Mr. Ponytail recognized right away, with a tremendous grin on his puss, the very second that Sande held it up. Our joy was mitigated by three factors: 1) the albums were much loved in their time, and therefore, not necessarily in the greatest condition, 2) the appraiser barely looked at the remainder of the albums, except to comment that if Sgt. Pepper’s read “mono” at the top instead of “stereo,” it would have been much better, and 3) there was a guy in the line about twenty people ahead who also had the “baby butcher” cover. The appraisal came out to about $15-20 for each of the albums, except the “baby butcher,” which he said could go easily for between $600-800, even in this condition.

As said, my lines were nothing. The Science and Technology table was a wait behind a single person, and if there had been more than one appraiser there, no one at all. The Tools and Instruments appraiser offered to help me, depending on what I had, but he didn’t know anything about old movie cameras. (He was exceedingly bored, and had only appraised a dozen items all day long, so he was desperate to talk to anybody at all.) My great pal Alexis had given my Bell and Howell Filmo Double Eight camera to me several years ago (I can’t remember if she found it at a garage sale or an antique store), but I didn’t know anything about it otherwise. Chiefly, I wanted to know the date, but the appraiser (kind of a tall cross between Doctor Who’s David Tennant and Freddie Mercury’s overbite, and with a soft British accent to boot) merely told me what I knew already: basically, all of the production information that I too could glean from the trappings of the camera itself, and a production date between the 1930s to the ‘40’s. (I suspect investigating its serial number elsewhere would get me more information.) He said there was no real market for 8mm, since they were so widely manufactured in those days, but that I could probably fetch $50-60 for it. Since I will always keep it as part of my film collection anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Which now brings me to The King In Yellow…

[To be continued on Tuesday...]